Value$-$Stream Mapping Data Set

TWI Industries

TWI Industries produces several components for tractors. This case concerns one product family$-$Steering Arms$-$which are produced in many configurations. TWI's customers for this product family are both original$-$equipment tractor builders and the aftermarket repair business.

Because of the wide variety of product configurations and the fact that customer configuration requirements vary from order to order, steering arms are a "make$-$to$-$order" business. It currently takes a customer order $27$ days to get through TWI's production processes. This long lead time and a significant order backlog have prompted TWI to quote a $60-$day lead time to customers. However, TWI's customers cannot accurately predict their size requirements more than $2$ weeks out, and thus they make adjustments to their orders $2$ weeks before shipment. These order adjustments lead to order expediting on the shop floor at 'TWI.

Although TWI Production Control releases customer orders to production roughly in the order that they are received, orders are batched by product configuration on the shop floor to reduce the number of time$-$consuming changeovers. This also creates a need for order expediting.

The Product

A steering arm is a metal rod with a forged fitting welded to each end.

TWI's steering arms are available in $20$ different lengths, $2$ diameters, and with $3$ different types of end fittings. $($Each end of the steering arm can have a different fitting.$)$ This means there are $240$ different steering arm part numbers that 'TWI supplies.